Why we didn't have a company phone number

In the early days of Rise at Seven, we used a service that gave us a company “landline” phone number and forwarded the calls to my mobile.

Since I answered all the calls myself, I could have a high degree of certainty that not a single new business inquiry from a brand we’d be able to work with came through the company phone. Not one.

We did get phone calls. Just none that we wanted. I’d estimate that I wasted 2-3 hours per week.

So when, at 9 months old, Rise at Seven moved out of our shared office and decided it wasn’t necessary to have a company phone at all. Let’s imagine it was 2 hours per week - over 9 months, I’d probably spent 14 working days on the phone…and not a single minute was spent with a prospect we could work with. Nearly all of those phone calls came during working hours where:

• I would have other meetings booked that I’d have to skip in order to answer the phone;
• My colleagues are working and my ability to help them is reduced because I’m on the phone;
• I am not at home, looking after our baby, unable to work even if I wanted to. I worked from 8am to 6pm and had to get a lot done in this time, which made me consistently look for things I could drop or delegate.

Through the pandemic our business was conducted on Google Meet. Then it just didn’t make sense to get the phone back on the other side.

The positives of not having a company phone number

• In my example, I answered every phone call. You might already be big enough that this has been delegated, either to a “receptionist”/office manager (rarer in agencies now); or distributed amongst the team. If you can recall an agency-wide email or Slack message from someone saying “can someone (else) please answer the phone”, I’ve got some news for you…you’re wasting your team’s time instead of your own, and they’ve noticed
• It conveys expertise. It would be super weird if you, a stranger, could get Carrie Rose or Stephen Kenwright on the phone on a whim. They must not be busy. Well, we were busy…if you wanted our time, you’d have to book it, like our clients do (although we’d give out our personal mobile numbers for emergencies). You too should be this cocky
• It might force you to think about the few things you actually need a company phone for. A brainstorm might tell you things like “clients or interviewees who are looking for the office and are lost”...so you get better at giving directions (maybe on your website). My friends at Evoluted send a PDF marking the car parking spaces you can use for free (also, happy birthday team!)
• Google can’t call you
• You reduce some of the baggage that your area code brings with it: for example, I believe, with almost no exceptions, that calls from London dialling codes are spam. Maybe you think a Sheffield code would make you look like a small outfit; maybe you think a Manchester code makes you cool…I don’t know. But you can skip this bit
• You save money. Landlines aren’t cheap
• You can take greater control of your calendar and speak to people if/when you want to, rather than when they feel like getting in touch
• Maybe, like Rise at Seven, you work with bigger brands who have marketing departments and who buy things based on consensus. There’s no “decision maker” who decides they need a new agency, does some Googling and calls you. If that’s you, you’re probably not missing out. If you work primarily with owner-managed businesses, maybe it’s different
• It might make you do your marketing properly: if you look differentiated in a way that a client can’t possibly run a pitch without you being in it, because you are made for THEM and they can’t avoid you, they are going to email you, or jump through whatever hoops you make them jump through. If you don’t do this, making it easy to get in touch with the owner might score you some points I guess, as long as no other agency on their radar ticks the “only ones for me” box
• Maybe you too are spending two hours a week on the phone, adding up to 20.8 working days (or one whole working month) in a year, and you too can think of better things to spend that time on. Maybe you think that two hours a week is totally unrealistic (worth recording it, if you can get sight of all the calls)...if that’s the case, we’re just negotiating on the amount. You know it’s more than 0 days
• It doesn’t matter if you have some days where nobody is in the office (e.g. you’re hybrid) because it’s less likely that someone important won’t be able to get in touch with you - you’ll probably give out your phone number, or your company mobile, to the people who might need you at short notice.

The negatives of not having a company phone number

• You can think of the exception that proves the rule. You can remember the lead you got that was good. You have this nagging doubt that they wouldn’t have emailed you instead and that you’d have missed out on this business
• You think it makes you look less legitimate, or like you’re hiding something (which you could probably get around by having some decent trust signals on the website and some well-known staff)
• You have “number of times the phone rings” as some kind of success measure (maybe you measure it in Google My Business…maybe you just get a warm feeling in your tum tum when you hear the office phone go, presumably because someone else has to answer it)
• Your clients might be - massive generalisation - slightly older, and less scared of the phone than people born in the late 80s onwards. They have an expectation of speaking to you on the phone.

Maybe you’re not convinced and that’s fine. For my part, though, I will never, ever have a company phone number ever again (unless something drastically changes).